‘Anything’ better than Assad, says Damascus resident

We spoke to Bissan al-Hallak, who lives in Damascus, and started by asking whether she was optimistic about the future of Syria.

Bissan al-Hallak: We are overwhelmed with happiness. We have mixed feelings of joy with fear, but joy is more overwhelming.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And what are you afraid of?

Bissan al-Hallak: Most of all, and first of all, is chaos. We are afraid of the chaos. But today, things in general started to get back to normal and the forces, the revolutionary forces, are trying to stabilise the situation in general. The second thing we are afraid of is the Israeli air strikes which started to attack Damascus yesterday.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And so what do you think is going on there? What are they attacking?

Bissan al-Hallak: Israel is attacking the weapons, the strategic weapons of Bashar al Assad. I think they believe that those weapons, when they were with Bashar, he was using them against his people. But now they are afraid that those people are going to use these same weapons against Israel someday.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And so what do you think of this new leadership of HTS? Do you trust them to have a broad-based Syria in the future?

Bissan al-Hallak: I trust them, yes. Although I don’t believe there is something perfect in life. But I think and I believe also that anything in life is better than Bashar. Anything in life is better than Bashar. And we are optimistic and we will try to be as positive as we can. We are really wary about all the mistakes that were committed in the Arab Spring. And we want to avoid these mistakes – and we hope for the better for Syria.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And what do you think should happen to those people who were part of the Assad regime and supporters of it?

Bissan al-Hallak: They must be brought to justice. Every criminal that committed war crimes should be brought to justice. That’s it. Regarding civilians and unarmed people and innocent civilians, I don’t think that there is any danger against them because they are open to build their state.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: There’s an awful lot to discover yet about what was going on during the Assad regime. There are so many people coming out of prisons, so many political prisoners, and we are going to learn a lot, I’m sure, of what was really going on. How do you think Syria and Syrian people can cope with that without the anger spilling over?

Bissan al-Hallak: I don’t know. I believe that after all the footage and the videos we saw from Sednaya prison, unfortunately, anything can be expected. Not everything can be accepted, but I think everything can be expected. Unfortunately, we saw really horrific footage. It’s really devastating, what’s happened to Syria is really devastating. Anyway, we just want justice to be served. We don’t want to be uncivilised.